


Georgia Witching Hour

by Meowspawn



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Zombies, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Animal Death, Bed & Breakfast, Canon-Typical Violence, Cussing, Dark Magic, Death, F/M, Gore, Graphic Description, M/M, Magic, Minor Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Child Abuse, Period-Typical Homophobia, Underage Smoking, Very inaccurate and exaggerated witchcraft and magic, Violence, Witchcraft, With A Twist, well...
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-06-08 08:01:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6846193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meowspawn/pseuds/Meowspawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started with a dusty old phone,</p><p>and it ended with one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Georgia Witching Hour

**Author's Note:**

> This was started spontaneously and I have a general idea of where it's going to go but I'm still figuring out the details so I have no idea how often I will update. Please read the endnotes for more information. 
> 
> Huge thanks to [oxymoroning](http://archiveofourown.org/users/oxymoroning) who beta read, put up with helping me edit the shit out of this fic, and gave me so many great suggestions for this. This probably wouldn’t even have been posted without her helping me make it an actually decent story.

It started with a dusty old phone.

"Are you really sure about this Rick, honey? You know Dan don't mind one bit if you tag along." The line crackled like an old rabbit ear T.V.; annoying but endearing in a nostalgic kind of way, familiar like a childhood friend. 

"Nah mama, I need to do this. It'll be good for me." The boy gripped the pastel blue phone tighter in his sweaty palms and spared a nervous glance around the exterior of equally as oddly colour corner store, all washed out pastels that were probably vibrant in their day, but had long since faded. 

"Alright honey, but you best remember that Charlie, you know, Dan's son, you met him at christmas last year, he said he would be more than happy to share his room with you!" The sweet voice at the other end sang, hard to hear over the white noise and background sound. Though she seemed to believe it, Rick highly doubted that Dan’s son, if he had even truly said it in the first place, he had actually meant that. The only meetings the two had ever had were tense and frankly, if the roles were reversed, Rick wouldn’t be too eager to share his room with the other boy. "I love you sweetheart be careful out there.”

“Okay ma, I'll call again as soon as I can." A few moments passed, filled with polite farewells, before the line clicked dead and the static ceased, though the air remained charged with sound, a deep hum radiating from the to bright neon sign atop the roof and the chrips of hundreds of crickets hidden away from prying eyes. 

 

Rick had considered going with his mom to Kentucky to move in with her new fiancé, after the man had popped the question two months prior, he never wanted to leave her alone. But the fact was she wouldn't be alone; she would be with Dan and Charlie and the rest of their vast and quirky relatives. At best he could camouflage himself into the background and pretend his mother moving on didn't send a sharp pain between his ribs but he would never really fit into the picture, damned to always be a messy spot, or a slightly off angle in the background that left you feeling frustrated wondering what was wrong with the scene. However much he wanted to move to the excitement of an area with a population that wasn't a mere two thousand like the ‘city’ he had grown up in had been, small town Georgia would always own his heart. Deep down he knew he would never willingly leave this state still breathing.

A tired groan pushed past his lips as he slung his backpack over his shoulder again because however much he wanted to stop there and collapse on the pavement for a few hours, he wasn’t going to waste the few hours of daylight left. The sun had already crept lower since last time he checked, and now it cast long shadows over the cement and shone too brightly directly into his narrowed eyes. It took him all of five minutes to stop inside the shop to stock back up on water and snacks, a rinse and repeat routine he was used to when going in and out of stores in a hurry. He exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding when his feet hit roughly paved road that stretched straight on for miles in a way that relaxed him. Rick’s head hung low and his steps slightly uncoordinated as the toll of walking most of the day in the heat hit him hard and he was suddenly very weary, but strangely, in a good way. The way that your muscles ached down to the bone but you couldn’t help but smile because it came from doing something, an accomplished tiredness. Thought, the aching feeling in his limbs did make him miss having somewhere set in stone to sleep, a place that wasn’t ever changing. That would’ve been a nice change to the sporadic amounts of rest he had gotten the past month.

Technically you could say he was homeless after his mother’s move-- well no, not really homeless since he very well could throw his hands in the air in defeat and use the last of his cash to bus to Kentucky, but his childhood home was sold to an elderly couple just a short month prior. Rick really had no place to call his own. He knew that wasn’t expected of him though, he was young and still a teenager, only seventeen and just graduated the previous winter, half a year before his peers. It would be a long time before the thought of settling down and buying a place of his own even crossed his mind. However much he tried to be an adult and hell, he could sure act like one, he was still just a kid trying to figure out where to go from there.

Being young and completely clueless to what was outside of the small town he had been raised in, there was something exhilarating about spending most of his time in small diners and run down motels by night, and the bed or passenger seat of a pickup truck by day. Unfamiliar, new, and eye opening. The world was very vast and unique, and even though discomfort came along with the adventure at times, Rick Grimes had never truly felt more alive than he did the May of ‘64. 

There was something hauntingly peaceful about having nobody know his name or story when he walked into a place, and being able to leave them forever wondering who he might be when he would inevitably uproot the next morning, like he always did. Though he never expected himself to be that kind of person, he would always treasure the experience of being fully his own with no cares even if that time would be short-lived as the wad of cash in his pocket grew smaller and smaller.

Soon he would be back to routine and work, if he could find it, but he planned to enjoy every second until then.

 

*** 

 

Rick awoke startled to the sound of a hand banging against metal. With a quick survey of his surroundings, he came back to earth while realizing the truck he was in had been parked and the driver looked at him expectantly in the rearview mirror. 

In a few quick motions, he grabbed his heavy bags, and climbed out of the back of yet another rusty old ford, this one, an unsightly peeling red that reminded him of the blood in his parents bedroom after- 

"Ya sure yer gonna be alright out here kid?" The white haired gruff looking man in the driver's seat asked as he started his vehicle back up. 

"Yeah, thanks for the ride sir." Rick called appreciatively as the truck slowly pulled back onto the road. When he picked Rick up, their agreement had been for him to drop the boy off a few miles from his home, and really he couldn't blame him. He wouldn't want some random hitchhiker knowing where he lived either. 

Most of the time Rick found himself staying in some friendly locals spare bedroom or at a dingy motel, but every once in awhile he found himself in the predicament he was in right now: outside. Suddenly he was very grateful that he lived in the heat of Georgia and it was a warm spring.

 

His limbs felt heavy, even after the few miles of rest he got, from all the walking beforehand. He finally laid down for the night just off the the highway, not quite in the thick off the forest, but still surrounded by towering evergreens. After a, very aggressive, struggle with his tent he planned on falling asleep as soon as his head hit the makeshift pillow.

Only he didn't. 

Nature was a calming thing that every other night helped him fall asleep, but tonight something was off. There was an electricity in the air, something crackling unseen all around him. Rick’s whole body felt on edge, like he needed to flee at the drop of a pen, and every slight snap of a branch or crunch of a leaf would have him jolting upright out of his sleeping bag. Every time he drifted off something would set him off again and he was right back to hyper awareness.

He quickly chalked it up to an abundance of animals this far from any big or even medium-sized town, the shapes that passed by his tent mostly resembled one animal or another.

Except when they didn't.

But Rick was good at forgetting, and the masses that crept just outside of where he slept that night he was able to convince himself probably weren’t human, despite the resemblance. Probably. And even if the whistling in the trees sounded like a familiar tune who was he to know it wasn't just a bird. 

 

*** 

"Hey, kid, where ya headed?" A rough voice boomed, in the same distinct backwoods southern drawl he had heard a lot lately, from the driver's seat of an old white and blue pickup driving at a snail's pace beside him. It slowly came to a halt and he found himself doing the same.

"Nowhere in particular. Somewhere that's got cheap food would be nice though.” The younger man shrugged nonchalantly, hiking his oversized bag higher on his shoulder. 

"Hmm, there's a li’l ol’ diner on the way I'm goin'. Girl named Susan works there," The older man let out a whistle. "She's a maneater. Probably give ya a discount just for ‘em blue eyes. Get in kid." 

Rick grinned shyly and tossed his bag into the back of the truck before swinging into the passenger seat. Rick took in the other man, obviously older than himself with hair that was cropped low to his skull. The vibe he gave off was ‘tough redneck’ with his thick muscles and the bags under his eyes which looked much too tired for someone his age, like he had already seen a lifetime of things.  
The man’s clothes looked worn out and torn and from his neck hung a battered string, what was at the end of it though, was well hidden under his stained white wifebeater. The thing that really caught his attention was the man’s one hand gripping the steering wheel. It wasn’t noticeable from a distance, but from where Rick was sitting, he could see that many thick white lines ran up and down the appendage. The wounds that once covered it deep and jagged that left wide uneven scars to lace most of the surface area. The scars looked old but painful, and he guessed the memory was even more so. Manners won out over curiosity, his jaw remained clenched and he didn’t dare ask where the prominent marks came from. Rick was never one to judge solely on looks anyways.

"So, um-"

"Merle." The other supplied.

"-Merle, I'm Rick by the way. Where are you headed?" The younger boy asked politely, trying to start small talk in the silence of the beat up pickup.

"Droppin' off eggs n' shit." Merle hitched his thumb backwards to point at the supplies in wooden crates nestled in the bed of the truck. "I ain't no damn errand boy if that's what yer thinkin'-" 

"I'm not." 

"-Not even close. It's actually my baby brother's job, but he's too busy dealin' with some asshole customers." The older man continued with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. "Ya would think if they gonna come all the way out here, they'd be prepared for a li’l dirt and discomfort. Damn rich ass city bastards."

"Know what you mean. My mama's engaged to a guy like that." He laughed at how crinkled up Merle’s face was in distaste for the 'customers'. 

"She know yer hitchhikin' this far from the city? Not tha' I care. Live yer life however the fuck ya wanna."

"Yeah she does, don' really matter though, she's in Kentucky with her fiancé." 

Merle nodded, but didn't push the conversation further to younger's relief. The truck bounced and rolled along as the road gradually changed from pavement to gravel and back to pavement again in a stretch that for most of the drive was straight with the occasional sharp twist. In a weird sort of way the dense forest surrounding the road on either side was comforting , like the tall pines were providing shelter as the loomed over the truck, and the mossy fern covered ground gave the whole wooded area a comfortable vibe. It was a place he would love to walk into and never walk back out of. The truck came to a sudden halt that jerked Rick both forward in his seat and out of his thoughts.

“Fuck!” Merle shouted beside him, laying on the horn in anger at the cause of their sudden stop. Two doe looked at the truck in disinterest before leaping off the road and into the other side of the forest. The older man angrily rubbed his neck and hopped out to check on the eggs in the back. A few seconds later he cursed quietly.

“What’s with the animals out here?” He asked when Merle climbed back into his seat, memories from the previous night resurfaced clearly in his head.

“Wha’d’ya mean?” Merle seemed to ask just to entertain the boy, distracted by the eggs in the back of the truck more than Rick's words.

“Well, last night they kept walkin’ real close to my tent, lots’a snapped branches and tracks outside when I woke up.” He paused for a moment, debating on wether or not to continue. Ultimately he decided he could trust the other to not just assume he was insane. “Could’a swore I saw somethin’ human lookin’ too.” After he said it he chanced a look at Merle to see the other man had visibly stiffened where he sat, but otherwise didn’t react or even look at Rick. Instead he started driving again tensely.

“Huh, weird.” The older man said in almost a robotic detached manner. “Pro’ly a good idea ta jus’ steer clear a the woods here.”

“Why-” 

Merle’s maimed hand darted to the volume dial and he cranked the radio much louder than necessary on a song Rick would bet his life that the other didn’t even like. “Love this song!” He shouted.

The music effectively cut off the conversation even long after the song had ended and the volume returned back to a little less eardrum shattering. The whole talk had left a bitter taste in his mouth and his stomach in knots.

“Hope you don’t mind making a pit stop.” Merle grumbled. Rick shrugged, uncaring, the scenery of the drive was nice and he almost wished it could last forever despite the now awkward silence filling the space.

 

It was a few miles before the truck stopped at said pit stop, which was a small gas station nestled just off the side of the road, and looked very similar to the bubblegum pink building he had been at a couple days ago. The truck pulled right up next to a pay phone on the side of the building, and Merle pushed the standard vehicle into park. Rick wasn’t a nosy person per say, but when Merle got out finally started talking through the receiver, it was hard not to overhear his loud voice.

“Daryl, so uh, I broke half a dozen eggs on the way to the diner.” Rick chuckled at his kicked puppy voice and leaned back in his seat, half listening to the conversation. Static, static, a loud sigh, then a voice as rough as Merle’s.

“Why ya always fuckin’ up shit tha’ I do Merle? Y’know what ne’ermind, don’ answer that,” Merle opened and closed his mouth a few times like a fish out of water, about to protest before the voice cut him off. “Just drop off those ones and tell Susan I’ll bring her the rest later.” The look on Merle’s face when the line clicked dead was priceless.

Rick had to smile at the sass from the person on the other end of the phone.

 

***

When the truck pulled up to a small diner painted an almost white shade, from time and sun expose, of yellow Rick started to wonder exactly what cosmic force was pushing him towards weirdly coloured buildings the past few days. He had to restrain himself from rolling his eyes at the place, whoever painted it, and his or her taste. Nonetheless he jumped out of the truck, taking a few moments to stretch and listen to the satisfying sound of his bones cracking and popping. Merle followed him not too far behind, crate filled with egg cartons and mixed flowers in hand. Rick looked down at the flowers and back up to the tough man beside him who simply shrugged and strode ahead. Together they pushed through the double doors into a small but cosy diner. The one wall was lined with pink leather booths and the other with a long bar accompanied by tall stools to match. The checkered floor and slightly off white tile walls looked like they hadn’t been cleaned in a while, despite a boy in the back with a rag in his hand at work. 

“Merle!” A shrill voice echoed as soon as the door shut behind them, and for half a second, Rick considered turning around and leaving the same way he came in, but that would be rude and he prided himself on being a polite and at least decent person.

“Susan.” Merle grinned from ear to ear beside Rick as a woman approached . Well approached wasn’t exactly the word, more like stalked towards them in her red high heels. Susan, Rick predicted, must have been nearing forty and dyed her hair red one too many times with how frazzled and split the ends were. She was nothing like what he imagined she would be like when Merle, halfway through their drive, yammered on and on about the time the pair ‘screwed’ on one of the tables in that very building. Instinctively he shuddered at the memory of the story and tried to remember to use a booth and not sit by the front end of the bar. 

Susan puckered her lips and planted a wet kiss on Merle’s cheek which left a prominent red mark, not that he seemed to mind or even notice.

“Those must be mine, but I thought I ordered three dozen…” She stared at the crate like it had personally offended her, then back up at the man in front of her.

“I broke some on the way, Daryl’s gonna bring ‘em down later.”

Susan cackled at that. “He musta been real happy to hear that. Jake!” 

A scrawny boy with eyes much too big for his face and greasy black hair came running from a booth in the back he had been cleaning. Without further instruction he grabbed the crate from Merle's hands and rushed it to what Rick assumed must have been the kitchen.

“Tell Marilyn thanks for the flowers, see ya next week Merle!” The redhead purred and sashayed after Jake to the kitchen.

Merle let out a sigh beside him, blatantly staring at her ass as she walked away. A few seconds of silence passed before the older man turned to him. 

“Well, have fun with the whole hitchhikin’ thing. See ya kid.” 

“It was nice ta meet ya Merle, hope the egg thing works out.” Rick grinned at the glare he received for the last comment. He could hear the other mutter ‘yeah, yeah’ as he turned on his heel and left the diner

It wasn’t until after he had sat down in one of the few booths scattered around the store that he realized how much he missed good company and having a conversation. Suddenly the boy became acutely aware of exactly how alone he was at that moment. Before he could slip further into that thought, a glass of water was thumped down loudly on his table, startling him momentarily. Standing over him was a blonde girl probably a year or two younger than him obnoxiously chewing bubblegum with her mouth open and staring at him expectantly.

“You gonna order or what?” She managed to cease her chewing long enough to speak.

 

“Uh yeah, jus’ a coffee please.” She glared down at him with narrowed eyes and he had to internally cringe at the amount of thorough disappointment in the look she was giving him.

“Where are you headed in such a hurry you can't order something worth my time?” The girl slid into the booth to sit adjacent to Rick and looked at him expectantly. Despite being deep in the south she barely had any sort of accent, making it easy to assume she wasn’t from around there. He shrugged.

“‘M lookin’ for work actually. Hitchhikin’ ain’t as cheap a way to travel as it’s made out to be.”

“You tried the ‘bed and breakfast’ yet?” The teenager actually made air quotes with her hands as she spoke which he tried his hardest not to read too far into, though he had to admit, his interest peaked slightly at that but he tried not to show it and settled instead for just shaking his head in response.

“The place always needs help, just aren’t any people young, strong, or stupid enough to take a job there yet, ‘cept the lady who runs it’s grandkids.”

“Can ya give me the address?”

She smirked at him. “If ya order a sandwich and milkshake I will.”

Begrudgingly he placed his order.

***

Rick was sure to use the diners bathroom to change into a new plain white t-shirt and slightly less ripped pair of dark wash jeans before leaving, even going the extra mile to attempt to get his wild curls to lay somewhat flat. The effort was unsuccessful. 

With the directions, scribbled onto a crumpled piece of paper, clenched in his hand he set out on a walk he was warned would be long and mostly uphill with the sun slowly lowering in the sky at his back.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is based in 1960’s small town Georgia where Rick is 17, Daryl is 16, and Merle is 26. There will be themes in this fic that could definitely be triggering and I will try to tag them as best as I can. 
> 
> The witchcraft part of this is overly and purposely exaggerated and very unrealistic, as someone who is dabbling in Wicca I can tell you a lot of it will feed into the media’s portrayal of magic rather than realistic forms. That being said please don't take 90% of things magic related in this seriously as something that could actually happen and stay out of dark magic kids. 
> 
> I claim no rights to the walking dead or it’s characters.


End file.
